


Homicide Hyperlink

by Billywick, hisboywriter



Series: Outlast Roleplay Fiction [3]
Category: Outlast (Video Games)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-11
Updated: 2014-06-17
Packaged: 2018-02-04 06:44:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1769488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Billywick/pseuds/Billywick, https://archiveofourown.org/users/hisboywriter/pseuds/hisboywriter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Waylon Park knew evil loomed over him.</p><p>It couldn’t be reasoned with, threatened, or bought out. That didn’t stop him from trying all three, sometimes offering all three as a cocktail of his terror because he could not be on the end of some very, very bad things about to happen to him, not when he had done the right thing.</p><p>(AU!reversal, Waylon is the crazy variant :D)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [relina-ru](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=relina-ru).
  * Inspired by [quick speedpaint au](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/54604) by relina-ru. 



> heavily(purely) inspired by this picture by the splendid relina-ru, whom I asked for permission and who will also hopefully like this ^^

To think mere hours ago he was tapping away at his laptop, an insignificant software engineer whose use extended as far as his genius did on the keyboard.

It was why they had pounced on him not five minutes after he’d blown the whistle by sending that email. He tried to feel proud at the fact that it had taken them that long to pinpoint what he’d done, to recognize they’d made a mistake in thinking the IT guy’s curiosity couldn’t be dangerous.

They didn’t play it that way though, and now Waylon couldn’t catch enough air to calm his heart. Or was his heart too eradicate for him to take deep breaths?

It had to work out okay. He’d done the right thing. Not all good deeds went unpunished.

Or maybe the did, and that’s why for so long he’d turn away when he’d seen a moment to interfere and step up, only to stew in that bitterness that should have been unleashed to ward off the wrong-doer and help the innocent.

Well, look where he sat now, strapped, a tongue working its way along his face.

He’d done the right thing. The mantra replayed in his mind, anything to focus on that wasn’t the screens in front of him, corrupted by images that made no sense.

Murkoff would be exposed. They could make him an unwilling volunteer, and God he hoped it wouldn’t get that far, but they couldn’t take his memories of what he’d seen them do. Memories that had once plagued him at night, making it easier for the screens he worked on to burn his already red eyes.

He’d let them burn, if it meant seeing what he saw, retaining it. His body was an enormous computer he told himself, and he had the greatest access to it. He’d get out of here. Someone would come to investigate. Lisa would worry. They’d been friends for so long, and were together, so she would ask questions.

He’d be okay.

He’d done the right thing.

-x-

Time was a fabrication of man’s mind, and therefore held no power anymore for Waylon. Not that he recognized that name instantly were it to fall off some wretched doctor or guard’s lips. Names were temporary placeholders, something to keep track of files and the data they housed.

Waylon might have been under Murkoff’s promise of punishment for a handful of hours, or weeks. It all felt the same. Waylon had remembered his name when he’d stumbled out of the room he’d been kept in.

He knew he had someone to get back to. A woman. The power was out. A camera. Blood. Death. Blood. Cannibalism. Monsters. Blood.

So much blood wherever he ran, scrambled, hid.

Eventually, he theorized all the blood was a ploy to make him think they’d bathed him in it, wash his mental state clean to implant their own information. Ha. Idiots. They couldn’t tell he was on to them.

He couldn’t remember it now, but he had held out for too long.

It was like taking a step into another reality, only instead of a step, it had been a lunge and fierce swing of the camcorder in his fist.

The corpse now crumpled at his feet had once belong to a doctor. Which one didn’t matter. The guy had barely begun to look relieved, saying, “Hey, you’re the tech guy--”

The blow had been an explosion that wiped out Waylon’s memory of the incident. He saw the camcorder off its hinges, sputtering to capture the dying moments of the doctor that had probed and prodded into places too dark and dirty and private.

One blow hadn’t been enough. There was a chair. It must have been useful at some point while the doctor was alive. Now it rested on its side, one of its legs bent, the wheel of it still twirling, the squeak the only sound in the room.

Waylon studied the camcorder.

It wouldn’t last long. He had to transfer the data. He couldn’t let his memories be wiped. What memories, he wasn’t sure of, but they were there, buried under other files. He could find it, open it at another time. For now, he needed more space, more networks to ensure no one could access him again.

Carving a space for him to work proved difficult. There were viruses everywhere trying to fuck him up, but he took delight when he always outsmarted them. They were inferior to his capabilities, blundering about to fulfill a single objective.

Finding the wires had proved just as difficult, but once he’d pried them free of their outdated hardware, he utilized them to take down those that interfered with his work. When active, he hardly felt the tickle of power from the work he did. Maybe he’d been granted greater tolerance for shock because he had willed his mind to do so.

That must be it.

But his work was not done.

Body after body, it wasn’t enough. They were cheap models that could only retain so much information. On one particular case, the body seemed to refuse to upload the server. He had felt moderately better electrocuting the body until smoke curled through the air and the stench of scorched skin contaminated the air with its error.

Waylon shoved it off the table.

Hm. The Tech.

The name sprung up like a notification in his mind. He had to live up to the name he’d been assigned.

He needed better hardware, that was the issue. It was the foundation to what he needed to do. Then, all his memories would be saved, and he could get out, take them everywhere.

-x-

Noise, irritating noise he couldn’t mute. It echoed in the distance, far from the ward he had flanked his project in. He might have been small and thinner than those viruses that stalked the halls, but they hadn’t made a point to smoke him out, steal his data.

Let them try. He was always equipped with what he needed now to dissolve their eyes into liquid.

For all his scavenging today though, he struggled to find something worth inspiring his project. The noises had him pause often, catch his breath--it was a scary sound, like a scream that had either once belonged to a human and had long since been claimed by the dead.

He ventured further out than he liked, nearing the territory of that disgusting plague. The file over his head read, damn, what was it. Frank? That sounded right.

Frank wouldn’t stop him. He had to find it. The hardware. It was how to make things right.

-x-

Hell surely had no realm as horrendous as what was on Earth right now. Or more specifically, what was in the Mount Massive Asylum for the criminally insane. Rampant monsters, blood, death at every corner, and worse always promising itself to the near future.

A long time ago, Eddie had promised himself that he would never again endure pain, humiliation and fear at the hands of another person. Back then, it had been his rock, that resolution as he sat in the cupboard of the garage, hiding from a man that stank of alcohol with greedy hands and stale breath. Back then, it helped him get through one of the worst experiences of his life.

There was no reason to let go of something that proved itself so powerful, right?

And yet, he was beginning to question his chances of survival in this new hell. It felt like he’d been here forever, but he could still clearly remember arriving here.

Eddie Gluskin had been one of the patients of Mount Massive, charged and trialled for the murder of seven women. He still didn’t believe what they’d said, that the women had in fact been dead because of him. No. He wouldn’t do that. He would never hurt someone else that way. No, he helped them, improved them, nothing more.

His crime and sentence became irrelevant the moment he was delivered here though. He couldn’t really tell what was going on, and solitary confinement had kept him from making any contact to the other inmates. There was talk though, of bad dreams, of a horror stalking their nightmares...Eddie liked none of it. He had plenty of nightmares of his own to deal with. It didn’t take him long to understand this institute wouldn’t help him conquer them whatsoever.

He should have expected it. What had he been thinking, when he went and turned himself in, afraid to have hurt someone in a fit of guilt? Eddie knew how the world worked. Punishment came without regards to your good intentions. No good deed went unpunished.

Yet in all of his own nightmares, he couldn’t have anticipated what happened in the asylum. He didn’t see much of it, since he spent most of the time in his little square, waiting for the day those doctors he heard arguing in front of his door decided whether or not he would be ‘put in’. Whatever that meant.

Eddie didn’t know. Didn’t want to. And it didn’t bear thinking about now.

Blood and monsters. His nightmares had come to life. They roamed the hallways, the courtyards, and there was no escaping their cruel nature. Screams that curdled Eddie’s blood had given plenty proof to that.

But he had survived so far. His large frame and strength had helped keep the crazed inmates away from him. And they truly were monsters, deformed by whatever horror the doctors inflicted upon them. Eddie could feel a distant tinge of sympathy for them when he watched them cut up bloody lumps in lab coats. But not enough to wish to join them.

He’d scavenged, scrounged, hid and ran from the largest of them all, a walking heap of meat that screamed for little pigs to hold still. Eddie never stopped to look what he in fact did to those who couldn’t run from him.

The regular sized inmates he fought off, he might even have killed one or two when they got too persistent. But other than that, Eddie kept himself low-key, always on the lookout, always with shivers running down his back, thinking he could sense eyes rest on his neck.

Today, he’d forayed into a new part of the asylum, one that contained far more pieces of human flesh than his stomach was comfortable with. There was murder, and there was slaughter. This was definitely the latter.

But the cafeteria was here, and it had been what drew Eddie in the first place. His stomach felt like it was beginning to devour itself, and the former patient would be grateful for even a can of beans.


	2. Chapter 2

The slaughter had been no more than a butchering for the inmate responsible. A massacre to those who were foolish enough to stumble in, a buffet for Frank. Oh, he saw the sneaky intruder entering his territory with the body much bigger than anyone he’d had thus far.

Very fresh meat.

He sniffed the air, waddling around from the room where his latest meal was now more splatter than anything else. He held tight to his blade, eyes fixed on the hulking form.

“Mine,” was the only snarl of a warning he gave before he tore after Eddie.

But he hardly made it. The instant his bare feet stepped onto a puddle, a surge of electricity ripped through his body, making him convulse, drop his weapon, and collapse onto the filthy floor with a wet smack.

He groaned and whined, something beyond human will making him sit up and whirl around, furious.

“You can’t have him!” A different voice rang out, accompanied by a crash of skull and plastic meeting. The chair went bouncing off Frank’s face, but he was still moving, turning away from whoever attacked him so he could claw after Eddie.

“I saw him first!” Frank shouted, grasping around on the floor until he grabbed his knife. But a kick to his back had him sprawling on the puddle again.

The man that had done it hardly looked intimidating, with his smaller build and overall lack of muscle. He compensated for the gleam in his eyes, tinged with a glow more common on electronics than a human.

Waylon pressed hard on Frank’s back, gave no time for the cannibal to slice at him, and shoved the thick wire he had in his hand into the water.

Ribbons of electricity flickered along Frank’s body, charging up along Waylon’s leg, though they seemed to not harm him in the slightest. His foot remained planted on the convulsing inmate, refusing to lift even as Frank’s body moved only because of the electricity making it so.

He pressed harder, harder still, and watched Frank’s skin smoke, saw blotches of black infect his body, saw his skin melt off like peels off fruit.

Only then did Waylon step off and flick his eyes up at the large body he’d saved.

Large, powerful.

The perfect hard drive.

When the bearded, naked man had started charging at him, Eddie braced himself for a fight, possibly flight if he found himself overpowered. He’d only made it three steps before chaos exploded behind him, and the stench of burned flesh rose to his nose.

The depravity of the scene didn’t shock him out of being coherent and able to think, but it certainly put the fright into his soul that usually made him bolt. This one was clever, and perhaps more dangerous than the bearded man.

Eddie turned. Shit. He couldn’t see the door, it was too dark. Double shit, he didn’t know his way around the place.

For a moment, he was face to face with his savior, and probably his next assailant and would be murderer. He didn’t look like much, but Eddie had long since learned not to underestimate anyone in this place.

He bolted, crashed over bodies and furniture, deciding that flight would be his best option until he knew his surroundings again.

Waylon wasn’t like the other inmates, blindly hurtling himself after prey in the darkness. It was alright. He should have expected this one to run. It was smart not to trust others, and needed a little gentle hacking to recognize he belonged to Waylon.

Gathering up the wire, still active, Waylon followed the path of heavy breathing and items being knocked over. West. Hm. West, west. Ah. That would be easy enough.

Waylon turned north, eyes adjusted to the darkness as if he had been constructed with a built in night vision camera. There was some wiggling and grunting as he fit through the vent, took its turns that he remembered effortlessly.

Along the way he made some adjustments to the building’s wiring. A lot of it had been taken down, but he’d managed to power parts of it back up. Not entirely, and not for the lights to flash back on again. No, he’d restructured what he could to formulate nests of wires. Now he hung one set of them along the way, snakes twisting in warning for if his perfect hard drive tried to run the opposite way.

Really, it was no challenge to hop down after that a few yards ahead of his target. He had heard him breathing hard as he quietly shimmied through the vents. When he landed and spotted his target struggling through the hallway, he smiled.

“There you are,” he said.

Eddie thought he was making good time, covering enough ground between himself and the deranged creature behind him. He suppressed a scream of surprise when the thing dropped from above him, blocking his path. He almost crashed into the small body, but caught himself at a small distance away. He was breathing hard, panting even. Eddie hadn’t eaten in what felt like days, and he was so exhausted. Sleeping in this asylum only happened in fragments, tiny parts of hours when Eddie had found such a remote corner he could trust himself to close his eyes and not wake at every slight sound.

Shit. Escape had failed him. So maybe, he’d have to fight.

Eddie wasn’t shy about wielding weapons when it came to saving his own skin, but all he had with him was a knife, and not a particularly large one. He grasped it now, as he tensed and tried to focus himself enough to calm his racing heart.

“Stay away from me!”

Poor thing. Seemed someone had tried tampering with this one and wired him a bit off-kilter. Waylon could sympathize with that. At the explosion of potential violence though, he hissed and tensed. He hated knives. He hated pain.

The friendly smile he’d had contorted into something malicious. Around his arm the wire buzzed with life. Carefully he slipped it into his palm, its movements like an obedient reptile. He gripped it hard, allowing the sparks to spit toward the man.

“Don’t tell me you’re here to trick me. To _fuck_ with my memories. Are you? Are you like _them_? If you are, that knife won’t get you far…”

His free hand gestured up, where, if the large man listened, he could hear the whine of electricity and feel the pulse of it under his feet. He had stumbled out of Frank’s buffet into Waylon’s nest.

Eddie didn’t really want to take his eyes off of this crazy little man. Clearly, he had some affinity to electricity. Whatever Murkoff staff had done with him had certainly been unnatural, because no one’s eyes should glow like that. His little knife sure as hell wasn’t going to cut him free of this mess.

But Eddie was far from being a pushover, or someone to surrender to any other will than his own. No matter how disturbing that smile on the short man’s face was.

“I...I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Eddie tried to back up a little more, but something jolted his back. What the fuck kind of place was this?! There was metal and wires everywhere.

“Just...just let me go, and no one gets hurt, huh?”

“Yes, that!”

The paroxysm of delight was a switch turned on. Waylon rushed forward, compensating for his poor strength with speed. And madness, but he would laugh were anyone to call him out on the latter.

Suddenly the small man was gripping a bulky bicep, the wires precariously close to zapping his target were it not careful.

“No one else has to get hurt,” he repeated. “Not anymore. I found you. I found you, at long last. You’re perfect. You’ll help more than you know. Help us to get out. Isn’t it amazing? No, not yet. But it will be.”

His laugh was not sane.

Now, Eddie would certainly not object to help if it meant getting out of this hellhole, but something rather urgent told him this little psycho couldn’t be trusted as an ally. The speed at which he moved was utterly...well, not intimidating since he hadn’t caused Eddie any pain yet, but he had to suppress a yelp when the man was suddenly on his arm.

It never went well when psychos praised you as perfect. With the wire so dangerously close, Eddie froze up, even though everything in him screamed to rid himself of his assailant, throw him across the room maybe.

“Get...” he prepared himself to get shocked, but it was worth the almighty effort he put in, “OFF!” he shoved the smaller body as hard as he could.

Waylon’s body couldn’t withstand such power, which he admired even in the moment of being thrown off. His back collided hard against a wall that had seen too much of depravity and could never be wiped clean enough. There, Waylon sagged, the initial shock and hurt of the act requiring a few heartbeats to process.

When his eyes dragged back up to Eddie, they were brighter, and thrum of electricity pulsed menacingly around them. The wires tangled on Waylon’s arm seethed and hissed still, a promise for Eddie’s behavior.

His perfect hard drive couldn’t run away, not without knowing what step might sent his hair sticking on end.

“You need heavy rewiring,” he said, calmer, standing straight. “Because you’re never going to fucking touch me like that again.”

It was as much as a warning as he’d provide.

Waylon tore loose a small vial from his pocket filled with water and threw its contents at Eddie’s feet, watching the dance of light charge up through the hallway, up his target’s body. He had been right to employ the heavy duty wires with enough venom to take down someone as large as Eddie. It wouldn’t knock him out, but it would separate his mind from his body, allowing him to see and feel himself crumble to the ground, to see Waylon loom over him as the lights still sparked around them.

Even someone as physically able to defend himself as Eddie was no match for the treachery of what was clearly one of the smartest of the former patients. He never knew he could feel so sick with fear again as when he crumbled, his body not obeying his command, leaving him powerless. Helpless. Vulnerable.

If Eddie could lash out, he would do so wildly, because alongside the terror of the current situation rose his nightmares, the age-old fear of being overpowered, toyed with, used...so dirty. So filthy. Never again, he’d promised himself.

Crying wasn’t an option either, even if Eddie’s soul begged for it.

“Oh god, no, no, nonononono!”

Waylon preferred the quiet grunting as he devised a system with some broken furniture and cords to haul the massive form back to the core of his project. Unfortunately he lacked what he needed to merely carry him or work on him right there and then.

So he dragged the body along in bursts, taking moments to catch a respite, in that to scope out the area head. Twice he ran into those nuisances and watched them bubble to death.

He had almost reached the ward when he heard the cries.

Concern overcame him as he looked over what would soon be his hard drive. Fear, dread, and more flashed over the well sculpted face.

“Hey, there, there,” Waylon said, patting his face lightly, the soft tingles of electricity bleeding through his fingertips like butterfly kisses. “Don’t be scared. They were going to hurt you, I know. I can tell. You’re not like them. I’m sorry I thought you might be. I’ve been eager to finish this project, so happy to find you. I must have scared you.”

He rested his hands on either side of Eddie’s face. “Don’t you worry. I won’t let them hurt you. I won’t let anyone hurt you or take you. Okay?”

Even though Eddie knew better than to trust in one of the patients, he felt himself calm down a little. Clearly he was worth more alive than dead to this one. He should make use of that. Perhaps he could...find out what this psycho was up to? He said something about getting out...yes, Eddie remembered that clearly. How, yet remained a mystery.

The current flowing from the crazed man’s fingers had him twitching to get out of his hold, however careful it had been. He didn’t want to be touched, or trapped, or actually even seen by this creature.

“Project? What project? Don’t touch me. Don’t. Touch. Me.”

“It’s okay, don’t be afraid,” Waylon repeated, hands still on Eddie’s face. “It’s scary to have a new administrator over you, but I’ll take good care of you.”

He let go, not to appease Eddie’s pleas. He hadn’t even heard them after the word ‘project’ had been dropped, reigniting his purpose once again.

A few more heaves and tugs, and Eddie was propped up on a medical table, then set on his back, the board under him, strapped with various wiring and cords keeping him in place. Waylon dusted his hands and loomed over Eddie once more, manic glee cresting his sparkling eyes.

“Big project. Can’t let them get away with it. Those fuckers!” He calmed down as instantly as he had spat the word. “They wanted to...to erase me, erase my thoughts, all in here,” he tapped hard at his own temples, “but I outsmarted them. Storing all my data so they can’t find it all. Then, once I know they’re safe, we can leave and tell the world of what they did.”

His hands flew up to punctuate his statements.

Above them, tangled in docile wires, bodies suspended above them. Wires pierced through their sides, their arms, their heads, eye sockets, the blood long since dripped out. After all, you needed hallowed space to do your rewiring.

Eddie had zoned out of listening to the madman talk when his eyes caught sight of what was above him. This time he did scream, in horror at the sight. It looked alien, the way those bodies were lined and penetrated by wires and instantly, Eddie knew what the madman held in mind for his future.

Hell no. He was not going to die here, on this table, to a crazy (tech?) guy half his size. Struggling proved to be a monumental effort, but Eddie was large, and determined, and also scared for his life.

Finally! He managed to rip one arm out of the coil of wires, which wasn’t enough to free all of him, but enough to grab for the little madman’s neck, which he caught, surprisingly enough. Eddie pulled him in close, partly because he couldn’t apply much pressure with his arm extended, and because he wanted to stop him from grabbing any more wires.

“No fucking way! You sick little fuck! You are not stringing me up to be your computer! I won’t let you kill me!”

Waylon gasped and coughed at the vice on his neck. He clawed at the edge of the table, trying to yank free, unable to just as he was unable to scream his fury. His eyes though, they burned with it, and they grew brighter still as he struggled but managed to knock a button with his knee beneath the table.

A more powerful wave of electricity rolled through both of them, enough that it even had Waylon flinching, but it was necessary to tug himself free and suck in deep breaths. He gagged and glared at the table, letting the power surge on.

Then, a shaky hand switched it off. Metal tables were a helpful piece to have.

When he spoke, it was raspy. “I’m going to overlook your accusations,” he said, taking the limp hand that had broke free and strapping it above Eddie’s head, “because you don’t know what you say. You will soon though.”

He thrust his face in front of Eddie’s. “I won’t let you leave me alone to rot in here. I’ll _burn_ you to the ground before that happens, before you abandon me to this hell. You’re _mine_." His smile flickered back on. "You’re going to save me, and I’ll take care of you. You’ll see…”

He leaned back. “I was going to be kind and provide you nourishments. Your kind of machinery needs it, but I think I’ll let you lie there for a while and think about what you said to me.”


	3. Chapter 3

Eddie was pretty sure he knew now what it felt like to be struck by lightning. His whole body tingled, ached, he could hear the blood surge through his head. Jesus, what kind of hell was he going to go through, under this man’s ‘care’?

He didn’t want to die. There was little Eddie Gluskin knew now except that. Please, don’t let me die in this place. 

Death didn’t come even though he’d expected it. Death let him wait for now, idling its hand elsewhere.

After a long while, Eddie dared to look to the side. The madman was busy with something else, probably preparing everything he needed to string Eddie’s body up with wires. He had to think of some way, some sort of plan to prevent that and to get off of this fucking table. If he was strapped down to metal he was dead meat. Literally.

He didn’t belong to this fucker. He didn’t belong to anyone and he’d fucking kill if it meant proving that statement true. But first...the table...Shit. He needed to gain the man’s...trust, whatever remnant of that remained in his crazy head.

“You...you weren’t a patient here, right? Do you...remember anything? Your name?”

Waylon had indeed been busy, always busy, fiddling and tinkering with things. Frustration brewed in him. With a lack of sustainable power, he had to rely on ancient tactics to design a way to utilize his new hard drive.

He hadn’t expected to be spoken to, but his smile was genuine as he turned in his seat.

“Hm? Patient? I don’t know what you’re talking about. No, no, see,” he got up and dragged his seat close to the table, “I came to help them. I’m very good with computers. They needed help, and I thought they were a good place to work. Naive me. I’m not so naive anymore. They were doing bad things, very bad things to the patients here.”

He sniffed, looked down. “I’m doing the right thing. I’m going to show what they did, bring justice to those poor men.”

He sighed and rubbed his face. “My name though...ah, Waylon. Yes. I remember that very well. Waylon Park. Oh, you must have received a name too. I never asked. Tell me it, would you? I’d really appreciate it. I’d like to know what to call you.”

For a psycho, Waylon was fairly civil. Probably because he felt secure in having the chance to string Eddie’s dead body up. But he was so tired...he needed to stall for time so his body could rest. Eddie only had his strength to rely on, and it was waning fast to lack of sleep and food and general rest.

“I’m...my name’s...Eddie.”

Not that he’d care once he carved holes into Eddie for wires. Jesus fuck, what was he even doing talking to the madman.

“Waylon Park...you...ah...what do you mean, your memories?”

“Hello, Eddie,” Waylon said, for an instant sounding like any sane, pitiful man who had been thrust into this madness. It wavered and fell away all together at the reminder of his memories.

“My memories. What I know, what I saw happen in here. They wanted to make me forget, change my software so I’d be under their control.” He shook his head. “They can’t now that I have you.”

He smiled broadly at Eddie, then moved away. After some rummaging, he returned with a bottle of water.

“You’ve calmed down. Here, drink up, up. It’ll make you feel better and you’ll start to see I won’t hurt you. I’d never do that. No. I’m the only thing keeping the others from finding you, like that fucking monster. Oh, what was his name...I don’t remember. I have it stored somewhere,” he waved absentmindedly to the bodies above him. “I’ll call him Piggy. It’s what he calls everyone else.”

Eddie hoped to hell and back that it was actual water he greedily sucked down as best he could with someone else holding the bottle for him. Waylon was definitely under the same crazy influence as the other former patients. Eddie hadn’t the curiosity or patience to find out what that was. He had enough trauma to last him a lifetime twice over.

“But you’re going to kill me,” Eddie muttered, looking back up at the bodies and wishing he hadn’t. He felt his stomach turn as his eyes traced a thick bundle of wires run through a male’s legs, into his body through a rather intimately carved hole and out of his mouth. Already he could feel the bitter bile of vomit in his mouth.

“You’re going to kill me like them.”

“No!” Waylon scowled, wiped the dribble off Eddie’s face, more as a precaution against the electrical circuits still dormant beneath him. 

“No, no, why would I kill you? I’d...never. We’re going to be together forever. You’ll store everything for me, and I’ll keep you safe from greedy, bad hands. Those up there, all outdated models. I had to tweak them to make them capable to store more space.”

He laughed that unsteady laugh of his.

“No wonder you were so frightened. No, no, no, no. You’ll be able to endure. You don’t need so much work like them. You’re...special, Eddie.”

That laugh did nothing to reassure Eddie. He had a feeling Waylon would soon enough find fault with him, which would be reason enough to attempt to murder him. No, he wasn’t going to fall into any trap, no matter how gently Waylon treated him, considering his insanity.

But for now, he would play the docile victim, whilst waiting to strike not unlike a viper hiding in foliage for prey. Except Eddie didn’t feel the same need, the immense urge he had lived out seven times to end a life. He only wanted to escape. Waylon was not someone he could punish, or improve.

“Do...do I need work at all? If I’m so special?”

Waylon drummed on his lips, reading files behind his eyes only he could see. At Eddie’s prompting, he looked over and smiled.

“Oh, no. Don’t worry about that. I’ll handle everything. We’ll see how you respond but...it’s best not to do too much work. I don’t know what they’ve done to you. Best tread carefully.”

He began to undo the bindings along the limbs. “If you promise to believe me, you can sit up. You must be uncomfortable. Don’t worry. No one can get in. This area is rigged with my specialties.”

Which meant no one could get out either.

“Let’s get you up. I like when you’re calm. We don’t need to fight, see? Here, I’m going to get you some food. Would you like that?”

Play along, play it safe, get as much as you can out of him. That’s what Eddie kept telling himself as he nodded, entirely uncomfortable in his role as helpless, obedient victim. Because he was damn sure that was exactly his position right now, even as Waylon undid enough of his bindings for him to sit up. Damn. This tiny man was really a laughable threat, considering what Eddie knew himself to be capable of. If he and Waylon had met anywhere else in the world outside, he had no doubt as to who would win a confrontation.

“Yes...yes I’d like some food Waylon.”

Waylon scurried away, harvesting the goods he had collected. The cans made for nifty traps and tricks, and now their contents could serve a greater purpose of sustaining Eddie. He didn’t take long, gathering what he could in his arms before he was setting the items on the table, the items relatively clean given the state of the entire asylum.

“And some water,” he said, setting a few bottles down. 

“Go on, eat.” Waylon set his face in his hands, watching with awe. “They didn’t hurt you badly, did they? You look unhurt, not like the others. If they hurt you,” his voice darkened, “I’m going to hunt down every one of them and smoke them.”

It wasn’t as if Eddie needed any more reminders that this man was beyond all help. The way he discussed the others made Eddie wonder just how many bodies were decorating the ceiling in Waylon’s mad vision of computer related slaughter.

He did eat though, his stomach the only part of him that was grateful to Waylon. As much as he could. You never knew when the opportunity for escape became available, or a fight he had to win.

At least Waylon contented himself with watching, even if Eddie felt like a prostitute in a whorehouse window-front.

“I’m...not hurt. They can’t hurt me. Too strong. They get scared,” not necessarily true, there were definitely patients roaming the halls that scared Eddie more than any imaginable horror, but he knew he shouldn’t rile Waylon up. 

Waylon nodded eagerly.

“Yes, you are. That’s good. I’m glad. You let me know if anyone bugs you. I...I won’t stand down anymore. I won’t let them bully the little guy.” He flashed a smile not right in structure, but its humor-filled meaning carried in his voice. “Not that you’re little. Not at all! You’re great.”

He shoved more food Eddie’s way and came around to a table ladled with his work. So much to do in so little time. Eddie would change that, provide the hope Waylon had unearthed with his own efforts. Those corporate whores were going to be hung out for what they’d done.

“Fuck them…”

So began the litany of muttering as he hunched over his work. It allowed Eddie time to eat in relative peace (diluted sense of the word), and wash up when Waylon gestured to a locker room with a couple functioning showers. Of course the area had been tampered with, the ol’ Waylon touch, but Eddie was safe. For now.

Soon. Soon they could escape.


	4. Chapter 4

Waylon’s madness could be categorized into many levels; even chaos seemed to have a hierarchy. There was the most notable one where he rambled about data, memories, and conspiracies with a fervor of a man who lived more in his head than reality. Then, there was his silent episode of mania, where he’d sit or stand still suddenly for almost an hour, staring at nothing. As far as you could tell, he’d entered a sleep mode with unnaturally bright eyes still open.

Less often, but probably one that stuck out most for sheer trauma’s sake, was his violent psychosis. It sparked with the slightest trigger. Once, when Eddie seemed too occupied with how Waylon had framed his traps that prevented anyone from entering. However it started, he never quite exploded into full blown violence, as if something, dare say a humane piece of him, recognized the violence he would bring to Eddie, which he didn’t want.

But he’d tense up, his voice would curdle. Eddie had to talk him down, assuage his suspicions, and Waylon was laughing it off, pleased with Eddie’s interest in his work though he never would elaborate on it. 

Yet there was another plane, almost independent of the others. It manifested when Eddie went to rest his eyes. No one knew how long they had been in there, existing on another dimension separate from the laws of time.

Time’s purpose, at best, was in its classification of when something happened before another thing. This quality startled Eddie awake no doubt in the form of Waylon crying out.

The tech was pressed hard into a corner, grasping his head like if he didn’t, it would roll off. His eyes were wide, his lips trembling, his breaths uneven. Tears streaked his face.

Another choked sound and the eyes pinched tightly.

“I tried to help,” came his cracked voice, “I did...I wanted to stop it...I tried. I tried to fight back when...they…”

Whatever was wrong with the psychopath today, it kept him away from Eddie, which he was grateful for as he woke with a start to the pathetic wailing of the smaller man. Whatever guilt was rolling around Waylon’s head was clearly of some significance, and that alone had Eddie sit up.

If he paid careful attention, he might just discover what it was that incapacitated Waylon like that, so securely. A useful morsel of knowledge, if he should gain it.

But that also meant feigning concerning for someone who wanted to carve holes into Eddie’s body. Not the easiest of tasks. Keeping on the bed, he watched Waylon very carefully.

“...when they?”

Waylon flinched at the intruder’s voice, disconnected from recognizing Eddie’s tone. It did cause him to let go of his head and loop his arms fiercely around his legs. For a while, there were nonsensical sounds sputtering out of him, as though he fought with a version of himself that wanted to drag back down whatever he was about to say.

It slipped out of his control, however, when he whispered the disgust, fear, and shame that needed no elaboration, “...when they touched me.”

Eddie didn’t want to have this conversation. He didn’t want to be here, and he certainly didn’t want to hear what kind of trauma haunted this broken little man.

But what choice did he have?

“Sick bastards,” he muttered, he could feel a distant wave of empathy that he didn’t want to acknowledge.

Waylon lifted his head slowly, the words spoken making their way through the processes of his brain function. He looked through Eddie, eyes wide as if taken aback that someone would say something like that to him. It felt like an eternity under the sickness of men like...what was his name? Andrew.

“Yes,” Waylon whispered.

His eyes focused on Eddie, depravity vacant from his expression for a rare moment in their shared (unknowingly) anguish.

“Everyday,” he said. ‘Something happened. Everyday. Or more than once a day. I don’t know. But not to you...won’t let them hurt you, not like that, not in any way.”

It was difficult to see Waylon as a victim to anyone, what with his proclivity for electrocution and carving human bodies, but Eddie could hardly call himself a more moral man that stood above such insanities. Besides, that look in Waylon’s eyes, that haunted one, definitely let that distant emotion of sympathy surge to the forefront of Eddie’s mind.

“Nobody will ever hurt me like that again.” he declared, very, very firmly.

Waylon held harder onto his legs. In his current state, information dragged and tumbled through his mind at a decelerated rate, so it took him several shaky breaths before understanding crested in his eyes. Detached from reality or not, he held an intelligence far beyond the other inmates.

“Again,” he parroted.

His face contorted, and one could dare to call it pain on Eddie’s behalf.

With a grace unbecoming of one out of his mind, Waylon crawled closer to Eddie, sat right in front of him.

“That’s why you ran from me. I knew it wasn’t because of me. They damaged you and no one ever fixed it.” He rested one hand over Eddie’s, lightly patting. “Special. Yes...that’s right. You’re not too damaged. I can fix it. Can’t store my data like the others with you, can I? That would be bad. I might mess up what’s already damaged.”

If it weren’t for that whole ‘storing’ thing that Waylon insisted seemed to be Eddie’s purpose in life, the small psycho wouldn’t even have been much to be weary of. He was definitely more intelligent than any of the other patients Eddie had encountered so far, and didn’t seem to want to kill him on purpose.

Predicting his actions was difficult and Eddie had still better be careful with him.

“Erh, yes. Damaged. Definitely,” Eddie gave a bitter little chuckle, “before I even got here.”

Waylon cursed and shook his head too hard for a normal man to handle without dizziness. He squeezed Eddie’s hand, then tugged on it to inspect it. Fingertips followed the paths of visible veins, as if their purpose were greater than supplying blood to Eddie’s body.

“Bastards,” Waylon said. “Yes, bastards. That’s right. Fuckers, bastards, they tried to erase me.”

He tapped Eddie’s forearm, along a vein. “Good entry point. Don’t you think? Nice wire inserted, hm...maybe the one point five inch one?”

“No,” Eddie pulled his arm back with a violent little jerk, not really wanting to know how Waylon saw the world and viewed his body. He definitely must have been working in the IT field, the way he obsessed over storage space and...wires?

He really did want to shove them into Eddie’s body. 

He thought frantically. Did he know anything, could he think of anything that would perhaps slow the desire to puncture him with cables? Eddie had never spent much time with computers, didn’t know how servers or whatever they were called really worked because he never cared, but hell, he could try to pretend.

“Haven’t you noticed? I’m made for wireless connections.”

At first, Waylon’s fury mounted at the behavior. A quick tongue on Eddie washed that expression right off him, replacing it with one of bemusement and then, awe. It had Waylon exclaim as though he finally understood.

“Of course! No wonder. That would explain so much,” he said, hands patting at Eddie’s broad size. “Your model is unique. It makes sense what software you have is also unique, unlike these error-ridden fuckers.”

Humming with delight, Waylon tugged on Eddie, trying to get him to stand.

“We should test it out! But first you should eat and drink, hm? Have you in top performance. Are you hungry?” He seemed to have forgotten the tears staining his face as he rummaged around and pulled out cans. “I found these. Different ones. You can have them.”

Eddie couldn’t believe how easily this madman was persuaded to first of all not harm him, but simply feed him and care for him in a fashion that suggested sanity and almost a presence of mind. Waylon was an odd, crazy little man and Eddie was pretty sure that if he continued to be smart about handling him, he might get out alive.

“I should get some fresh air too. Helps my...ah...performance.” 

Was he pushing the ‘envelope’ too hard?

Waylon was busy laying out the cans in a particular formula that only made sense to him, smiling all the while and his discussion of trauma a minor error that had been wiped clean in this version of himself.

He lowered the last can precariously down.

“Outside?” The tone dropped. “They’re outside, waiting.”

His eyes brightened.

“You...You want me erased, don’t you!” His scream came like a bolt of lightning. “Is that it? You want to go back to who had you before me, get back to his fucking hands and let him take my memories?!”

“No, no!” Eddie brought up his hands, just in case he needed to grab Waylon and lift him into the air, to keep him away from his wires and cables and anything else he needed to be dangerous.

“I’m here for you,” it was only a partial lie, he did need Waylon to deactivate the traps so Eddie wouldn’t electrocute himself when he escaped, “just for you and your memories, okay? Calm...down...”

Waylon smacked his hands hard on the table, not unlike a child throwing a tantrum. It was one of many differences between him and the inmates. Many exploded into violence out of a thirst for more of it, particularly unleashed on someone else. Waylon resorted to violence when his emotions battled with his ‘logic’, when the fears got too much for him.

“Then why would you say that? Why would you bully me like that? Do you think I’m stupid? Is it because I’m small, quiet,” he lost himself on the next word, a piece of himself too gone in that moment to be brought up,”because you think I’m fucking crazy?! You’re mine! I’m not crazy! I saw it! I saw it, Eddie, I saw it, I saw it, I did, and they wanted to shut me up!”

Eddie didn’t like how his name sounded it Waylon’s mouth, like a possession, a toy, something to be cherished, but also something most definitely not alive. How long could he dance around the subject? Waylon had seemed content so far to simply let him live in his little hoard.

“What did you see?” he didn’t deny he thought Waylon was crazy because he heartily agreed there.


	5. Chapter 5

Waylon’s muscles relaxed at the question. His breathing quieted, his arms quivering but not out of the previous onslaught of rage. The tech swallowed hard, and for an instant, he looked as vulnerable as he felt deep down in him where he’d carved a niche to, maybe, protect the remnants of his sanity.

A noise shut that window of opportunity down in a blink.

Waylon’s eyes went hard and crisp, ticking over to the side where the noise originated from.

“Someone’s sneaking in,” he said, accusingly.

He scurried over to a panel of windows that peered out into the hallway. A shadow, a beast of one, stretched along the entire width of the floor.

“Where are you, pig?” the voice said.

Waylon hissed. He waited, stared, calculated.

Piggy, as Waylon referred to him by, walked into the first trap. Sparks flashed around his massive body. Groans and grunts dropped from him, the sounds quiet as though having bumped a tad too hard into a table.

Piggy kept walking forward.

“I smell you,” he said, angrier now.

Waylon was already moving away, but a sudden thump of footsteps, a shriek of breaking glass, and Piggy’s arm had torn through the window and grabbed his neck. It didn’t matter that Piggy had stepped in water, that electricity coursed through layers of his frame.

He wouldn’t let go.

Waylon screamed as much as he was allowed, a terrified cocktail of buried fear and looming rage. Without access to his servers or cords, Waylon was nothing but a small man with trauma as his arsenal. Even the slight tingle his body had on another was laughable in the hand of someone was starting to drag him through shards of glass.

He shouldn’t have moved. He should just let the large mass of man drag the small insane one from the room, probably to kill him and eat him or whatever crazy mutilation this one practiced.

Waylon was nothing but another poor patient gone nuts and out for Eddie’s blood in one way or another. If he was clever about it, Eddie could just use the path the extraordinarily large man carved form himself once they were gone.

So why the hell had he jumped up and grabbed onto Waylon, as if he wanted to save him? Why was there a blade in his hand, hacking at the hands that grabbed for the little maniac?

“Let go you enormous fuck!” Eddie heard himself shout, and the anger in his voice was alien to him. Why would he even be angry at someone for killing his captor?

Piggy was enormous, but slice into him enough times and Waylon could squirm through the lack of meat to freedom. He could hear Eddie shouting, and it rebooted his vigor; he crouched down and snatched what he needed.

He chucked the thick wires over the edge of broken glass and shoved Eddie away in time to slap on a switch that had the hallway detonate with light. Piggy never bellowed so hard, and Waylon wanted to watch all the fat peel in ribbons off his body, but instead, and he didn’t question why, he was dragging Eddie under a table, holding his head in his lap to protect his eyes from going temporarily blind.

It felt like hours of light casting shadows more brilliantly than they had up to this point, hours of Piggy’s noises, which gradually faded into the sounds of the electricity still popping. The lights continued but in bursts, which told Waylon he could lift his hands and let Eddie’s head rise.

“You…”

Manic glee shot Waylon forward, his arms looped around Eddie’s shoulders. The fabric of his patient uniform prevented the little shocks of his skin. He gave a fierce squeeze and leaned back, hands still on Eddie, a child’s little smile on his face.

“I’m sorry for accusing you before. I sometimes get wrapped up in my work and don’t see anything else but the servers. That fucker.” He clicked his tongue and gently padded around Eddie’s bicep. “Just bruising. Not enough damage to interrupt you. Are you okay? He didn’t hurt you anywhere else?”

He shouldn’t have helped. Eddie cursed himself for not thinking things through before acting. But his instinct had been to save Waylon, that meant something, right?

“Is he dead? I can’t hear him anymore...”

Waylon left Eddie under the table as he leaned over the denticulated hole made by Piggy. His body laid sprawled on the damp floor, skin turned to the color of coal, the floor stained with a mixture of human coloring.

Not minding the glass or power still scorching the ground, Waylon hopped over and carefully inspected the body.

“It took a lot to get him down,” he said in confirmation. 

There was no way he could drag this bulk of body, even with Eddie’s assistance.

He scoffed and stomped down on the remnants of Piggy’s face, its skin and bone caving under the force of his foot with ease.

“Fucker isn’t even worth salvaging for parts. He’s too infected.”

He stepped away, rolling up the cords and wires once he shut off the power to the circuit in that area.

“They’re getting desperate coming this way.” He looked back at Eddie, smile returning. “You’ll get us out.” He came over again, gently touched Eddie’s face. “You’re the greatest thing that’s happened to me, Eddie.”

“Erhm,” Eddie didn’t really know how to respond to that, because Waylon was probably one of the worst. True, he hadn’t tried to hurt him or anything, but this asylum would hardly be associated with good memories for Eddie. None of these inmates would be called good memories by him.

“Can’t we just go now? You and me, outside?”

“Soon, soon,” Waylon said, ushering his possession deeper into the ward. “You need to store my memories first. Need to know they’re safe.”

With not much force he nudged at Eddie to take a seat on a mattress he’d been using as his bed. A few feet from it a corpse hummed with whatever Waylon had done to it, no less out of place for the tech than an alarm clock by someone’s bed.

“I’m going to tell you it all, and then, yes, it should be good.” He nodded, then narrowed an eye suspiciously. “You are capable of encryption, yes? Maybe I should create a new one,” tapping Eddie’s knee, “right here might do it…”

“No...no need, I can manage encryption. I’m an advanced model, remember?” Eddie tried to sound offended rather than frightened, he really didn’t want Waylon to think it necessary to carve any holes for cables into his body. 

He did wonder why he was on a mattress now though.

“So...are you going...tell me your memories and I’ll record them, or how are you planning to do this?”

Where fear had reignited Waylon’s suspicions and subsequent rage, the offense had him shake his head and scoot closer as to assure Eddie he understood. It was no better than a pup’s behavior for the most part.

“I wish I had the time to explore your hardware more, but another time,” Waylon said. “I think recording will be easiest, quickest too. Then a quick, ah, right, you can manage the encryption.”

He maneuvered on the mattress, stretching out onto his back and exhaling. Before he tapped into the file the other body held in various quantities, he looked at Eddie.

“Ready?”

He didn’t wait for confirmation. After all, he was the user and Eddie the receptor. Files opened, access was granted, and Waylon mentally scanned memories in the body he had lying next. As though quite literally opening a document, he began recounting the first details of his arrival, though it was mottled with distorted interpretations of his past life. The clearest memories were of what he saw.

He detailed the horrors of a hell on earth with the detachment of someone transferring data and nothing more. He elaborated on the methods used to torture, the momentary glimpses of doctors touching patients in a way they shouldn’t have, of ways they let other patients touch other patients. And the screaming. He had memories of every kind of scream, their tone and length categorized into over seven classifications. 

Each time he reached the end of the ‘file’ on a body, he got up and went to the next, somehow requiring to lie down, as though it were the only way to access what he needed. Or maybe it was the only way to keep what remained of his buried sanity balanced throughout his body, so it weren’t to be suddenly snatch from its hiding and thus broken.

Waylon didn’t know of that, only knew what each body had been hiding. It lasted less than an hour, and when he reached the final body, he paused and sat up. He’d reached the part when he’d been caught.

“There’s a glitch at this part. I’ve not been able to access it, but it’s not important. I have the memories of what they did,” he said, his voice soft, eyes heavy with the weight of his memories. It’s why he had them stored. Made it easier to have something else carry them, safer too.

Eddie felt himself shiver with chill as Waylon recited his memories, but with an amount of detail that seemed entirely inhuman. At one point, he just went through a long list of different screams, and he made each one of them. Eddie just had to follow him from body to body, and look attentive when the patient looked up at him in question. He almost pitied Waylon again, and he had to admit, that feeling kept coming to him.

Maybe he’d try to get Waylon help once he got out. He didn’t deserve to be this crazy and fucked up for the rest of his life, and he seemed...salvageable. 

“That’s all of it? Nothing more?”

Waylon didn’t move, didn’t blink, looked to have stopped breathing as he sat there. Then, before Eddie might have had the mind to tap him, he blinked once, slowly, and absorbed the details of the room once more, returning to the current predicament. 

“More?” he said, more to himself than anything else. 

It felt like there was more. There was, wasn’t there? Yet it must have been well protected because he had not even an inkling how to hack into it.

“Possibly.” He looked at Eddie, some glee returning to his otherwise vacant, shattered expression. “But if I can’t access it, maybe you can. You’re...advanced, aren’t you? You should have some kind of...extraction mechanism. Like a USB you would stick into a port.”

“Uh...” Eddie replied intelligently. He knew enough about computers not to be lost when someone mentioned a USB, but since his body was the computer in question, he found himself a little out of his depth. The first thought that came to him and made sense was kind of lewd and Eddie threw it out immediately.

“I...don’t think you have the, uh, right access point. Probably incompatible...software?” he really tried to navigate the slew of terms Waylon used, he just hoped what he’d said made sense.

Waylon blinked up at him, then shrugged one shoulder. Retrieving the files of his memories had taken enough of a toll to spare Eddie immediate danger. The tech looked ghostly in his very presence.

“Should remedy that,” he said, voice distant.

What were they doing?

Memories.

Stored. Safe. The most important ones.

He blinked rapidly.

“Good...good, for now, you have it all.” He looked Eddie over with a critical eye. “Perfect. You were right. You are advanced. Those fuckers from before could hardly take some of my memories.”

They had to get out. His sensors were ringing alarms in him, and he assumed Eddie knew it too. He gestured for Eddie to follow, leading the way, navigating through his traps. It took longer due to Eddie’s girth. He couldn’t fit into the vents.

Still, they managed.

A handful of times others dared to interrupt, or didn’t know better. Waylon’s violence returned with hunger. He had only brought a few devices, tweaked by his knowledge, that would send smoke curling off their heads.

At one point, he stopped cold. They heard overhead voices. Shoot on demand. Fucking viruses and malware is what they were. Waylon didn’t trust the men in suits they had seen, and the voice echoing overhead had more likely than not convinced Eddie not to shriek for help.

“No, this way. This way. They’re coming in deeper. See? I told you. I knew it. I always knew. They’re here to shut us down, erase us all…”

He muttered to himself, not troubled by the blood staining his body by now. Too many variants had staggered their way, but the closer they got to the entrance, the quieter it became, the more blood they walked through instead of spilled themselves.

A light reaching in through a rectangular.

Exit.

Outside.

Waylon inhaled deeply, gripping Eddie’s arm tightly. Despite his size, he’d taken the lead in all senses of the word, protecting the larger man instead of utilizing his strength to pummel their way to freedom.

“Quiet,” he whispered to Eddie, eyes glued to the light, terrified of it, but knowing there he could tell them all about his memories.

They hardly made it halfway when a body propped against the door twitched, then gradually looked their way.

It gave a weak chuckle. 

“Fuc...Fuckin’ kidding me,” it said.

Waylon tilted his head, searching for the familiar face, that...voice, oiled.

“H-Hey,” it was saying, but to Eddie. “Y-You’re not like them, huh?” A groan, Waylon felt sicker the deeper he looked for the file with that man’s face on it. “Help me up...I’ll get you out of here. Properly...c-come on. Before they come back…”

Eddie had been breathing outside air, and it almost made him dizzy with excitement. He was going to survive it. He was getting out of here, and there was no one in his way that-

The voice sounded vaguely familiar, but Eddie had no recent memory of it. He’d heard it before, but no face, no name came to him.

Now, altruism was not Eddie’s first priority, but maybe, if he helped someone who had worked here, they could help him disappear. That’s all he wanted to do, be away from Murkoff and publicity.

So Eddie leaned down, held the man’s arm, tried to help him up without giving him further injury.

The sharp pain in his side was new though and it took him way too long to realize the man in his grasp was Jeremy Blaire, and he’d been the one to decide Eddie’s fate when he arrived here.

“Sorry, Gluskin, can’t let you walk out of here.”

Waylon abandoned his search. He fixated on the blood streaking a blade in the hands of--

He never screamed so hard in his life, never bore down every emotion down on a single entity as he did in that moment. He was on Blaire, their bodies crashing and wrestling on dirt, broken floors and walls, Waylon still screaming as he saw the man’s face flash like the demon he was haunting his dreams, his never ending nightmare.

He screamed for Eddie, and for himself, though he hardly remembered why.

He left burnt flesh in his wake, but Blaire was evil, the same evil that had loomed over Waylon, and it terrified him.

“Fucker!” Blaire was screaming at him, squeezing the life out of him. “Should have skinned you when I had the chance! You’ll never get out, never-”

Waylon sucked in deep breaths when the pressure left him, replaced by the weight of Blaire’s begging screams. He didn’t look up, but didn’t have to to feel and hear the ethereal voice of the nonhuman. Of things one couldn’t compute. 

It’s hiss had Waylon curl into himself, choke down sobs.

He was cold. He was afraid.

Where was he?

Blaire.

He was pushing up onto all fours, and didn’t remember making his way to Eddie. Eddie. He remembered Eddie.

“Eddie, Eddie,” he shook the man’s shoulder, too distant to notice the blood raining down on them, the pattering on their bodies short-lived, “we have to...go. Eddie, get up.”

He couldn’t. Fear had paralyzed Eddie, rooted him to the spot. The wound Blaire had stabbed into his side kept him anchored here, he’d never leave the asylum alive, not when that thing...that thing!

He could hear his uncle, his father, his mother, and they all knew he would die here. His secrets, theirs, Waylon’s, all of them would end here.

Waylon’s breathing escalated as panic at last found him hiding under the bed. It stared at him with bright eyes, a long tongue, claws meant to impale, not scratch up his back. He saw it in Eddie’s face too, and maybe it was the one advantage he had.

Eddie was dribbling from his side. Waylon made swift work of tearing his clothes and wrapping it around. He could repair damages later. They had to get out.

It should have been impossible. Even with the little jolts his skin forced Eddie into slight movement, it was mostly Waylon dragging his form out, then getting him to stand and lean on him. It hurt. Everything hurt.

The light hurt.

The silence hurt.

Peace surrounded them as they took a step, dragged the other foot, repeat.

A vehicle.

Waylon renewed the surge of power and energy, manhandled Eddie into the passenger seat. As he slammed the seat to the driver’s seat and gripped the wheel, he didn’t hear his own breath coming out shakily.

He looked ahead.

Darkness swarmed into a form.

It was watching.

Intelligence.

Waylon stared back.

Drive.

He struggled to recall the mechanics of that simple task, but he did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The fizzle ran out on this one...TBC


End file.
